


Creative Writing

by applejackcat



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), The Legend of Barney Thomson (2015)
Genre: Barnelle - Freeform, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 16:28:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3984937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applejackcat/pseuds/applejackcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barney Thomson muddles through life and tells himself he doesn't mind the loneliness. When he meets Belle French, he knows he will do anything to spend time with her -- even if that means taking her Creative Writing course. Of course Barney cocks it up, but following the tracks that come before that smoldering train wreck is half the fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Creative Writing

If Barney Thomson’s forty-eight years have taught him anything, it is that the universe loves nothing more than giving him a good kick in the pants.

 

He tells himself he accepts his lot in life, cause at least he’s got a job that keeps a roof over his head and puts food on the table. Everyone once in a while, his Rangers pull a win out of their arses, and that’s got to count for something, right?

 

But truth be told, the loneliness gnaws at him with insidious surety.

 

Sometimes Barney wakes in the middle of the night, alone in his single bed, crushing sadness unfurling within him, his face damp and clammy, and he realizes he has been crying in his sleep. He goes weeks, weeks, without genuine, intentional physical contact. That sort of solitude -- it wears upon a man. It whittles him down until he feels like a bag of flesh and bones and nothingness.

 

And then: something happens. And Barney decides he will change.

 

And of course, he cocks it all up, because as much as he’d like to blame his lack of friends and lack of success on the powers that be, Barney Thomson knows the truth: he’s a fucking idiot, and he always cocks things up.

 

* * *

 

 

Barney knows there are parts of the world with perpetual good weather and loads of sunshine, but he’s a Glasgow boy to his core; grey, rainy drabness feels like home.

 

So, when he’s walking to work one day, and the rain is coming down like it’s the sixth chapter of Genesis, he thinks nothing of it. He keeps his eyes on the pavement in front of him and wonders if anyone will choose him as their barber or if he’ll get the folk too busy to wait for a proper barber. He has no idea his world is about to change -- until he walks straight into it.

 

Or, into her.

 

Small as he is, Barney doubts he could knock an average-sized woman to the pavement, but this woman is wee enough to fit in his pocket. And despite the rain, she wears very high heels, which Barney later reflects could nae have helped her balance. Point being: he sends her flying.

 

The woman hits the ground with a wet thud and yelps. Her books and papers go flying, too, and the downpour makes quick work of ruining them. People passing by grumble at Barney and at the wee woman, and no one stops to help her.

 

Barney, the sodding fool, stares at her for far too long, trying to make sense of his latest cock up. He avoids looking at her face for the same reason he avoids looking at the sun: its radiance blinds him. He knows he needs to make this right, needs to help her up and apologize and help her collect her belongings, but he cannot.

 

His world has changed forever. Whoever this woman is, he did not know about her until seconds before, and now it’s as if the earth has shifted on its axis. She fills him to the brim, fills him with feelings and longings he cannot hope to name, and he doesn’t even know who she is.

 

The woman stares back at Barney. When she manages to right herself, tottering on those impossible high heels, she does not immediately set about tearing into him. Instead, she fixes Barney with a smile that almost knocks him to the ground and sticks out her hand.

 

“Hello! How do you do? I’m Belle French!” She glances down cheerily at her soaking wet books and papers. She tuts. “This is a bit of a mess, but then, so am I! You don’t mind, do you, if we start late?” She chuckles. “Well, later than we already are.”

 

Barney’s mind cannot possibly keep up with the way events are unfolding, so it gives up trying. He tries to apologize and ask Belle French what she’s about at the same time. He succeeds only in making a truly off-putting shriek, which, he reflects later, adequately summed up the fiasco.

 

But Belle French does not point and laugh at Barney’s ineptitude. She seems charmed by it, in fact, and offers him another one of her effervescent smiles. “Thanks. This is my first course, and you’re my only attendant so far, so I think we can set our own pace, right?”

 

Finally, something resembling chivalry clicks in Barney’s brain. “Sorry, sorry, so sorry, sorry!” He continues his litany of apologies as he stoops to collect Belle French’s belongings. The papers have become pulpy masses, but she might be able to salvage the books. When he finishes, Belle French motions for him to follow her -- and for lack of a better option, because it makes about as much sense as anything in the past five minutes has, he does: into the nearest building.

 

It turns out to be a small but cosy library. Belle French smiles at the elderly woman behind the checkout desk.

 

“Someone turned up!” she crows.

 

The librarian beams at Barney. “And a handsome fellow at that,” she titters.

 

Belle French laughs. “Mrs. Hubbard!”

 

“Shall I bring you tea and biscuits?” Mrs. Hubbard asks.

 

Turning to look at Barney, Belle French cocks her head. “How does a cuppa sound?”

 

It sounds bloody fantastic, especially if he gets to drink it in her company. Barney hasn’t a clue what Belle French wants with him, but he could nae think of a better way to spend the dreary morning. He thinks about calling the barber’s shop but dismisses the notion almost immediately. The lads would get one without him for one morning (and probably longer, if he feels like being brutally honest with himself).

 

So Barney tells her, “It sounds wonderful.”

 

And when Belle French asks, he tells her he takes his tea with milk and two sugars.

 

* * *

 

Barney panics shortly after taking his first sip of tea.

 

That is when he realizes Belle French’s mistake (and not the one where she treated him with kindness after he bowled her over). She believes he has come to the library to take her Creative Writing course; she thinks he ran into her in his haste to make it to the class.

 

Belle French has mistaken Barney for a writer with aspirations of creativity. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

Barney has not written much beyond shopping lists since a misadventure in the late nineties when he kept a dream journal. Beyond envisaging his brother’s mouth sewing itself shut during their rare family dinners, he doesn’t much exercise his imagination, either. He has known Belle French for all of thirty minutes, and he still struggles to meet her stunningly blue eyes for more than a few moments.

 

But now he cannot fathom how he will return to his mundane, achingly lonely life and not know if he will ever gaze into them again.

 

Surely, when Belle French realizes what a dunce he is, she will send him on his way and have nothing more to do with him. A woman as vivacious as she must have interesting people banging down her door, begging for her time; Barney knows with a certainty borne out of a lifetime of being lackluster that he could never compete with them.

 

So, Barney decides to change. To spend more time with Belle French, he will endeavor to become a writer. A creative writer.

 

And he might have had a modicum of success, if he had not also decided to change his penis. But that smoldering train wreck would come much later, after Belle French had become Belle and his fascination with her had become love.

 

For the time being, Barney sips his tea and munches on a biscuit and escapes a soaking Glasgow morning in the company of Belle French. 

**Author's Note:**

> Consider this the plot bunny that gnawed through its tether, gorged itself on verbosity, and managed to give its owner a real run around. I suppose this is what one gets for centering a story on poor Barney's insecurities about his penis. By the end of this, I hope all of these dick references make sense.


End file.
